Mathematics

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT MATHEMATICS - PAGE 4

By Arkady Plotnitsky. Arkady Plotnitsky is an associate professor of English at Purdue University and the editor, with Barbara H. Smith, of "Mathematics, Science and Postclassical Theory." | March 14, 1999

THE FRENCH MATHEMATICIAN By Tom Petsinis Walker and Co., 426 pages, $24 `Hard task, vain hope, to analyse the mind," says William Wordsworth, a great representative of the era to which Tom Petsinis' novel returns us, in his extraordinary portrayal of a poetic mind (his own) in "The Prelude." This task is even harder when it is the mind of a scientist, given the divide, and sometimes abyss, between "two cultures," scientific and humanistic, as C.P. Snow famously defined them a few decades ago. On the one hand, one wants lay readers to appreciate the scientific side of scientists' minds and lives.

For the first time ever, a play with a mathematically talented woman as the central character has captured the imaginations of audiences on Broadway--and the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for drama. David Auburn's "Proof" is a remarkable artistic achievement, which views mathematics through a warm, empathetic and humanizing lens. Now that it has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, productions of "Proof" likely will be mounted across the country, giving mathematics some of the best publicity it has had in decades.

The Shadows of Creation: Dark Matter and the Structure of the Universe By Michael Riordan and David N. Schramm W.H. Freeman, 288 pages, $18.95 The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe By Eric Lerner Times Books, 466 pages, $21 Where did we come from, where are we going, and what is this pause in between? Whether you look to religion, philosophy or science, the answers to those truly fundamental questions tend to resemble one another.

Although congratulations are due to any Nobel Prize winner, and John Pople of Northwestern University is to be commended, the Oct. 17 editorial "A Nobel for Northwestern" completely misrepresents science and mathematics. Unfortunately, there are too many scientists who think that mathematical formalism does represent physical reality. Your example, saying that chemical reactions are "merely" equations in a test tube, is an illustration of how wrong and backward our thinking has become.

It is unfortunate that the Tribune printed an editorial whose only purpose seemed to be to poke fun at recent efforts of mathematicians and physicists to wrestle with long-term questions regarding the nature of mathematics and science ("Now, answer these questions," Aug. 21). Although the Tribune's efforts to substitute a more "practical" set of questions for the more esoteric ones cited may be mildly humorous, the fact remains that the overall tone of the editorial places the efforts of mathematics researchers in an unfavorable light.

In her July 30 letter, Rosanne Provance makes the point that "the most effective way of learning (mathematics and science) is by memorization." As a tutor in mathematics and physics, I disagree. Students sometimes ask me whether they should memorize a particular idea, and I tell them that what they memorize they can also forget. But if they understand a concept, they will more likely remember it. Understanding requires study, which includes deriving equations and formulas, working problems, making mistakes and learning from them.

A few years ago, John A. Sanders and his son Fred were sorting through the nearly 800 pounds of math textbooks the former professor had accumulated. Inside one of his old college volumes they found inscribed, just beneath his name: "I'll find a way, or else I'll make one. " Dr. Sanders' eyes welled up, the words reminding him of the struggles and successes of his life, his son said. "At that moment, I realized it was this very motto he lived by that allowed him to become the man he did," his son said.

John W. McConnell (Voice of the people, April 18) stated that ". . .better mathematics and science instruction for all students can eliminate gender differences in higher level courses." As a student participating in many of these courses at Mr. McConnell's school, Glenbrook South, I can attest to the fact that the early implementation of accelerated-level math and science courses does, in fact, result in the elimination of the traditional gender differences found in most high schools' higher level courses.

Services for Martha P. Hildebrandt, 93, a mathematics teacher who helped devise the "new math," will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in the chapel at 1100 Greenleaf Ave., Wilmette. Miss Hildebrandt, of Wilmette, died Wednesday in Evanston Hospital. She taught mathematics at Proviso East High School in Maywood from 1915 to 1959, retiring as head of the math department. After her retirement she taught at Emory University in Atlanta from 1960 to 1966. She was a past president of the Women's Math Club of Chicago, served as president of the National College of Mathematics in 1939-1940 and was a charter member of the School Mathemetics Study Group, which devised the "new math."

Max A. Zorn, 86, professor emeritus of mathematics at Indiana University, was the author of an algebraic formulation known as "Zorn's lemma." It is used in helping to explain the foundations of mathematics. A resident of Bloomington, Ind., he died Tuesday in Bloomington Hospital in that city. Professor Zorn, a native of Germany, fled from Nazism in 1934 and became a refugee scholar at Yale University. It was while there that he first created the formulation named for him. A lemma is defined as a subsidiary proposition used in proving some other proposition in mathematics.